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DEATH ROW DOLLARS By Ben Waxman
Abraham has always been a strong supporter of capital punishment. A 1995 profile of her in the New York Times, headlined "THE DEADLIEST DA", found she pursued the death penalty more often than any other prosecutor in the county. Her position on capital punishment has not changed over the years and cost the city millions of dollars.
There are 222 people on death row in Pennsylvania. Of that group, 116 are from Philadelphia. No other city or county in the state comes close to our numbers. It's true that Philadelphia has the largest population, but that doesn't completely explain why our city is so well represented on death row. Prosecutors in Philadelphia seek the death penalty at a much higher rate than other parts of the state. For example, prosecutors in Pittsburgh seek the death penalty about one fourth as much as their counterparts in our city.
Deciding to seek the death penalty-- and paying the extra costs associated with that choice-- is completely up to discretion of prosecutors. Lynne Abraham strongly supports capital punishment and uses her office as a tool to implement that policy. As a result, Philadelphia taxpayers wind up paying a higher tab to prosecute death penalty cases than people in other parts of the state.
No in-depth study so far has tracked how much it costs Philadelphia to sentence so many people to death, but several reports from states around the country clearly show that the cost is higher than putting someone in prison for life. In North Carolina, researchers from Duke University estimate that the death penalty costs taxpayers an additional $2.16 million for each case. Another study by the State of Kansas found that the average death penalty case cost $1.26 million vs. $740,000 to keep someone in prison for life. No study anywhere in the country in the past twenty years has found that executions are cheaper than life in prison.
At first, this seems counter intuitive. How can it cost more money to put someone on death row than imprison the same person for life? Most of the extra costs associated with capital punishment happen before and during the trial. It takes prosecutors and defense attorneys more time to prepare for a death penalty case. Jury selection also takes longer because each individual juror has to be quizzed about their views on capital punishment. Capital cases also trigger a host of post-trial motions that do not happen if the punishment sought is life in prison. All of these things drive the cost of death penalty cases higher than simply seeking life in prison.
The criminal justice system is an expensive proposition. Police, courts, and jails account for 22.5% of the entire $4 billion city budget. Why is this such a big ticket item? Philadelphia has the highest incarceration rate in the country and that costs serious money. Halting death penalty prosecutions and replacing it with life in prison is one small way that Philadelphia can begin to reduce these costs.
Capital punishment is going out of style. Public opinion polls show the lowest support for the death penalty since the 1960s. More and more states, such as our neighbors in New Jersey, are abolishing capital punishment and replacing it with life in prison. Philadelphia can help lead the way in Pennsylvania by vastly reducing (or completely eliminating) the number of cases where the prosecution seeks the death penalty.
Ben Waxman covers budget issues for It's Our Money, a partnership between the Daily News and WHYY funded by the William Penn Foundation. To contact Ben with your thoughts on the cost of the death penalty or any other issue related to how "Our Money" is spent, email him at waxmanb (at) phillynews.com.
You can also take part in a discussion with other readers of this site on our blog.
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On Tuesday, District Attorney Lynne Abraham went before City Council to defend her $44 million budget. As Philadelphia struggles to deal with the increasing cost of public safety, it is seems worthwhile to examine one aspect of the DA’s budget: the financial price of her aggressive pursuit of the death penalty.